A Delightful Surrender

God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.
Andrew Murray

Sometimes God’s revelation cascades over me like a flashflood in a dry desert wash. It is sudden and powerful. Usually I have missed the warning signs and my only response is immediate, obedient action. This is often a choice of self-sufficiency or God saving me from myself.

More often, God’s truth is like a mountain stream flowing slowly through the banks of my life. His truth gently pours over the stones of my experiences. As it makes its way through every turn, it intersects my life and quietly calls me to drink and know it’s refreshing, life-giving power.

Psalm 37:4-7 are very familiar verses that God has continuously allowed to flow into my life. I am afraid I have not fully recognized their source and potential for quenching my thirst for God. I have settled for only sips of the eternal, instead of drinking deeply from God’s living water.

Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him.

The following are a few simple observations of how I might surrender my spiritually-parched life for a soul saturated by God. I must learn to do five things.

1- Delight in the Lord

Delight: great pleasure, high degree of gratification, extreme satisfaction Original biblical language: to bend or incline.

I recently had the delight of being with my daughter and grandson Swen. To watch Amy’s loving care for her baby son around the clock brought my heart great pleasure. I continuously bent towards him to see what he would do next. My ear was inclined to hear every sound. I was amazed to hear him speak his first words, “I love Grandpa best.” OK that was probably a burp. My love grew each day I spent with him. It did not matter what kind of day I was having, Swen always brought me pleasure and a joyous laughter.

I delight in the Lord by spending time with Him. I allow my heart to fill with wonderment and awe in His presence. I long to hear His words of love. I anticipate His work around me. I delight in the One who desires me to drink deeply and often of the healing and refreshing water only He can provide.

2- Commit my way to the Lord

When Debbie and I knew we loved one another, commitment was a natural response. As I learn to truly love and delight in the Lord, commitment is not an act of obligation but a white flag of surrender. This is an unconditional and complete surrender of all my ways. My thoughts, rights, plans, decisions, family, vocation and future are released into the control of my loving and gracious King. A delightful surrender often comes at the end of the battle of who will be God in my life: me or Jesus?

Oswald Sanders wrote: “…overwhelming passage in your circumstances where your program of belief is about to emerge into a personal belief? This can never be until a personal need arises out of a personal problem. To believe is to commit. In the program of mental belief I commit myself, and abandon all that is not related to that commitment. In personal belief I commit myself morally to this way of confidence and refuse to compromise with any other; and in particular belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ, and determine in that thing to be dominated by the Lord alone.”

The roots of of commitment grow deep when watered by the storms of trials.

3- Trust in God

Delight and commitment are ignited by trust. This is the personalization of God’s activity in my life. This is not simply acquiescing to doctrinal truth. My trust is based on nothing less then the very character of God. Here I must reveal what I really believe about God. Will God be just my genie in a bottle or Lord and Master?

Recently I have experienced several weeks of fun with a kidney stone. This caused an infection and took me off the transplant list. Everything medically was tried, to no avail. The doorstep of trust is located just beyond human possibilities. So I trusted God.

Then at my appointment with the surgeon, I was told the infection was gone and God rolled away the stone. But it appeared God made a mistake. The stone could not pass or be reached by another surgery. So God moved it back up into the lower kidney. This should not have happened, but now I am cleared for transplant.

The stone could, of course, return to create the same problems. Why did God leave it in my body? I believe so that I might continue to learn to trust and wait.

4- Rest in the Lord

Stop and let God do His work. This requires a connection to each of the previous points. As I delight, commit, and trust Him, I can now experience a peaceful relaxation that is only found in His arms.

5- Wait patiently for Him

Is it possible to wait impatiently? Sure, I do it all the time. Just check your stress and worry level. Too often I have waited for Him while pacing the floor of uncertainty. Too often my faith is crippled by my desire to regain control. It is never a good idea to try and wrestle from God what you have already put in His hands.

The key to waiting patiently is who we are waiting for. It is not a thing or circumstance or even a miracle. I wait for Him. God is never late or too early. He has no need to work according to my watch or check my day planner. To wait patiently for Him, I must meditate and ponder the greatness of God. In His presence, time has no hold on my emotions. Only in God does senselessness make sense. C.S. Lewis captures these thoughts when he wrote:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

When I apply these five truths to my life, God will give me the desires of my heart…which is Himself. This is always the fruit of a heart that has experienced a delightful surrender.

Delighting in God,
Dan